


The Witness

by Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1)



Category: Video Blogging RPF, Youtube RPF
Genre: Bittersweet, Canon Compliant, Coma, Doubt, Existential Angst, Fear, Ficlet, Helplessness, Introspection, Longing, Powerlessness, Present Tense, Sadness, Self-Doubt, Visions, observation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-07 03:44:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20302924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Im_The_Doctor
Summary: There are many things he sees that the others don’t. That’s his duty—to be observant, to take note, to internalize and remember.Since he was born, there’s not a day that goes by that he doesn’t remember.





	The Witness

There are many things he sees that the others don’t. That’s his duty—to be observant, to take note, to internalize and remember.

Since he was born, there’s not a day that goes by that he doesn’t remember.

He loves the others. He loves their tenacity. He loves the spark in their eyes. These days it’s a spark that’s been stunted. It dims with every new evening, like each of them is a candle burning down…candles that surround their maker in a vigil, standing guard around him. How long will it be before they blow out?

He watches closely. He watches them wax and wane. It stings.

Sometimes being nothing but a witness is lonely. There are many days that he longs for a voice with every fiber of his being. If granted one, if it were Jack’s will, he would pour out his _soul_ to them. He would prove to them that he understood so much more than they realized.

_Even if I have no voice to cry out, I can comprehend pain_.

But a voice he was not granted. He must live in a void, black air swathing him for all his past and future days. He keeps a tally and feels all the more helpless for it. Even on the rare occasion that they do confide in him, he watches. He knows well how to read their eyes and he sees their doubt lurking there. _You could not understand_.

Do they think him a fool? A lesser being? There were things he could see that they had yet to imagine, much less fathom.

_I see you at your lowest. I see your soaring heights. I hear your thoughts. I know the pain tucked behind every tooth in your smiles_. _I see the cracks hiding in your every reflection_.

Yet he cannot fault them. For all his power, he cannot act on it. Perhaps that is debasement enough. Perhaps a spectator is in fact a lesser being.

What good is he? What purpose can he serve for the protection of their family? Of their Creator? Of their world?

They’ve lived so long without their Jack now. They’ve lived so long in a broken world. When they sleep, he can hear the whispered pleas in their dreams. They long for Jack so.

Ever so distant, like the sound of waves in a crumbling seashell, he can hear Jack crying for them too. He wishes he could tell them that.

He wishes. When Jackieboy reels back his hand to shatter his wall, when Marvin is tearing through his books in a mad frenzy for an answer, when Henrik’s weeping long into the night, when Chase screams into his pillow, when Jameson trembles in silent dread…He aches, he _burns_ with the desire to be of use, to be more to them than this, with such fire that he feels like he might burst.

It is not to be. Bubbles fluttering to the surface of his tank with each flick of his nerve, Sam stares pensively into the dark. He watches. He waits. He hopes.

The sun will rise for his Creator’s children again, and he will bear witness to it.


End file.
